Getting Chiseled

02 Feb Getting Chiseled

As I grow older I feel as though I am being chiseled away at. I feel that as I continue moving through life, trying to figure things out, it’s happening the other way around. It can feel as though something is happening to me, that I am learning, being challenged, slowly transforming all the time. I believe there is a fixed self or soul that continues to be at the core, like a snake that loses skin, or some other creature that leaves an old shell and finds a new one. My soul continues, my Self continues, in spite of the changing nature of who I present to the world and even to my conscious self.

I’m getting a little away from what I really wanted to say here. I feel as though who I am is being refined all the time and I am not completely responsible. I do think I’m responsible for being open and searching and through this process I end up in various places and states of mind that contribute to my formation. It’s as though I started out a blob when i was younger and I am slowly being carved into a more differentiated structure. Whether it is God, some other force, my own soul or daimon, I don’t know. Haven’t a clue at this point in my life, I just know that I’m not fully responsible for what is ‘happening’ to me.

Whatever it is, it might be a good idea to not fight it. Obviously there are times when it doesn’t feel very good. There are times when I think I just want to be a comfy blob and not go through all this chiseling, but then isn’t the result of this chiseling what I continue to ask for? To know who I am? To know my purpose and my passion? Someone or something is listening and providing that but it doesn’t work as quickly as I’d like.

Sometimes people tell me I think too much. Again, I am not always just thinking too much. Something else is driving me toward something. I’m sure it’s true that at times I think too much and try and control my life through those thoughts, but in other ways, I am also responding. Responding to a process, a calling of sorts, to move in a direction that is hard and difficult but necessary. I don’t even know if I could just stop and “be happy” with my life as it is. It doesn’t seem to be my choice. I do think I could let go more and allow this process to unfold with less fear and control on my part.

This chiseling process also feels like a constant death and birth process. It’s painful, messy, grief stricken and real. Life isn’t fluffy and positive all the time. There is something so real about the bookends of life and we seem to in so many ways ignore both: the miracle and power of birth and the reality and purity of death. They can both truly bring us back to this very moment of life and breathing and constant transformation.